Innovation News

Newark, NJ - Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno recently joined the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) for the groundbreaking of its new Life Sciences and Engineering Building, a $19.6 million state-of-the-art research facility. The State of New Jersey Higher Education Capital Facilities Grant Programs, including the Building Our Future General Obligation Bond Act (the GO Bond Act), provided $13.5 million in funding.

“Today we break ground on a site that will host new collaborations and help NJIT continue its incredible research into innovations that sound right out of fiction but which are being developed right here,” said Lt. Governor Guadagno. “Imagine what you will be able to do with the resources this new facility will bring. This project ensures that NJIT’s students will be armed with the best possible education to help them change the world.”​The new facility is part of a $300 million campus-wide capital building program and is scheduled for completion in 2016. The 24,500-square-foot facility will house laboratories, offices and spaces designed to promote collaboration among faculty, students, staff, and external partners.

“NJIT has long been known for research breakthroughs and advancing emerging fields,” said Joel S. Bloom, NJIT president. “The new Life Sciences and Engineering Building will afford our faculty, students and statewide partners increased ability to collaborate and advance progress already made in critical areas such as brain and spinal cord injuries, biosensors and other medical devices and nanotechnology.”

The facility will also offer a new home to existing statewide collaborations with NJIT including those with: Rutgers University, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Robert Wood Johnson, Kessler Foundation, Pffeifer Foundation, Purdue Pharma, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson.

The GO Bond Act, which was signed into law by Governor Christie in 2012, is the first such bond program dedicated to capital improvement projects for higher education since 1988. All four-year public institutions of higher education, all county colleges and private nonprofit institutions of higher education authorized to grant degrees, organized under the New Jersey nonprofit corporation law and having an endowment valued at less than $1 billion are eligible for this Program. The Administration’s commitment to capital investment in New Jersey’s system of higher education through state-supported bond programs totals more than $1.3 billion.